


Silent Hearts

by lawrencetheshark



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Gen, haha you guys are gonna hate my by the time im done with this ship, here we go again, more sads from the jasp, past Dadster, past Gaster/Grillby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-08 18:03:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5507534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lawrencetheshark/pseuds/lawrencetheshark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gaster is gone and Grillby is the only one that remembers him.<br/>...right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A prompt given to me by NekoChan700 on tumblr because I haven't developed my own universe quite enough to come up with sads on my own but boy am I always ready to make people ache.

The ripple in time and space tore into Grillby’s consciousness like a sharp knife through bed linens. He was nearly convinced that the tear was audible. His knees buckled and he slammed his palms on the counter to remain steady. The smoke was gone from the embers of his lungs and as he struggled to get his breath back he looked up. His eyes darted frantically around the room, meeting only concerned and bewildered stares. Nobody seemed to have heard the tear or felt the ripple.

Maybe Grillby was imagining things.

That had to be it. Of course there was nothing wrong. Perhaps someone had just opened a door or window too swiftly and it had jarred his flames and made him dizzy. Yeah, that had to be it. He cleared his throat and straightened, smoothing his vest. He nodded at the crowd of eyes staring at him and picked up the pot of coffee from the warming plate. 

The customers turned back to their own affairs as Grillby shuffled among the customers, refilling the coffees of the heavy-eyed patrons and removing the coins left by those who had already skedaddled. A few new faces were among the crowd and they hinted that they were concerned by his outburst, but he assured them that he was fine, which seemed to placate them. But a couple of the older, more regular customers, he stopped to chat for a moment with each.

A large fish at the bar gurgled about being lonely. Grillby waited for him to poke him with his greasy fin and slur about Grillby’s beau and make his flames burn a little hotter (in embarrassment or annoyance Grillby couldn’t tell anymore). But that didn’t happen. It was odd, but the bartender shook it off. Unfortunately other monsters acted in kind. Snide comments were either bitten back or weren’t made at all. Each passing conversation filled him with more and more dread until, by mid-afternoon, he felt as if he was made of lead.

To top it off, each ring of the bell on the door was someone other than the one person Grillby wanted to see.

By the time darkness fell Grillby had come to the conclusion that the tear he’d felt earlier was exactly what he’d thought, and what he’d feared—something had happened at the core, and Gaster was dead. What was worse, Grillby was the only one who remembered.

It took all Grillby had to keep himself together until the door was locked and the final patron was long gone. And then…he cried. For twenty straight minutes he cried on the floor, his hand searing the doorknob and the wood around it as his control slipped. Smoke billowed from his lungs until the entire bar interior was obscured by a thick haze. There would be no sleep for him that night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans realizes something is wrong.

Sans was the furthest from the Core when it happened. An explosion of magical energy barreled into his chest like a train and he choked on the joke he was about to complete. For about seven seconds he couldn’t breathe, and the woman on the other side of the door was worried. “Hello?” her voice sounded. “Are you there?”

“I have to go, lady,” Sans said hurriedly, vaulting to his feet and vanishing.

He turned up in the middle of the forest, a considerable distance from but still within view of a snowdrake family, one that Sans recognized. A moment of conversation with them and Sans was off again. This time he found an ice cap, one that had turned a pale pink on their first visit to the Core and had refrozen that color. Once again, Sans was gone after a short conversation. This happened several times before the skeleton became frantic. He gripped his sweater, suddenly feeling strangled although he did not have a windpipe, and fell to his knees in the darkness of the laboratory beneath his home.

None of the monsters knew Gaster. Nobody remembered the name of the scientist working on the core, only that the project was complete. Gaster was gone. He was dead. Sans’ father was dead. And Sans was the only one who remembered.

He didn’t come up from the lab for hours. The only reason he did was because Papyrus would be going to bed soon, and he couldn’t leave his baby brother to go to sleep without his story. After the smaller skeleton was asleep he snuck quietly out of the house and over to Grillby’s, which he knew would be open for another hour or so.

The door opened to a warm and welcoming atmosphere. The contrast of the interior of the bar to the interior of Sans’ being made him shiver, despite being unable to feel any real temperature. He drew in a deep breath and stepped over the threshold.

Immediately the skeleton was greeted with words of welcome from the regular customers and a jolt in the shoulders of the fire monster behind the counter at the sudden chorus of noise. He adopted the mask of calm indifference that he always wore, stuffed his hands in his pockets and nodded to each of the regulars he passed as he walked up to the bar counter.

“Hey Grillby,” he greeted, sitting at the stool near the center of the bar counter. “Can I get a burger?”

Grillby hesitated a moment, staring at the young skeleton, before nodding and turning to fill the order.

While he waited, Sans let his mind wander, trying to figure out what he could and could not say to Grillby. His behavior towards the elder monster would very much have to change now and he wasn’t 100% sure he knew to what. But if Grillby didn’t remember Gaster, he didn’t remember basically being the skeleton brothers’ other father. So how could Sans stay the same?

Grillby returned with a burger in his hand and anxiety in his features, which Sans was quick to notice, after having spent so much time with the man. But perhaps he shouldn’t ask, he thought. Perhaps he wouldn’t really know the subtle changes in Grillby’s features without Gaster. Perhaps it would be odd for a customer, despite his best, to ask if he was feeling okay. So Sans said nothing, ignoring the lingering attention left on him from the bartender.

He made some small talk with the others at the bar, discussing the weather and current events and delighting in every chuckle and every groan that arose whenever he made a joke. It took all he had that night not to seek out comfort in Grillby’s fatherly embrace—mainly because that would be odd to Grillby, but also because he had to be home and asleep at a reasonable hour so that he could be there for Papyrus if he remembered anything unsettling.

Sans was the last person to leave and Grillby locked the doors behind him. Sans didn’t turn back as he walked home. He didn’t notice the steady stream of smoke that began to drift from the dark tavern.


	3. Chapter 3

It had been two weeks since the terrible day that Gaster was ripped from the lives of those who loved him, and nobody was the wiser. Grillby knew, and Sans knew, and neither knew that the other was aware, and so both stewed in their loneliness.

Sans could not escape the way it felt to have such a person ripped from his world. Each and every moment spent in the house was a reminder of him, and it felt, at times, that the laboratory below the house was throbbing, alive, with a beating heart that thrummed against Sans’ ear drums with each step he took on the ground level.

He stopped spending time on the ground level.

Grillby tried his very best to become okay with his lover being gone. It didn’t work out well, but he did try. He tried to strike up conversations with his regulars, but it was difficult to lace his words together in such a way that left Gaster out of it, especially considering that had been the topic of most of the locals’ jabs towards Grillby for long enough that he found himself floundering without that foothold in the conversation. As time went on, Grillby simply fell silent, speaking only every so often, and usually only to Sans. 

Grillby watched as Sans slowly became depressed. He knew why, too, but Sans shrugged it off. Every so often Grillby felt that glimmer of hope once again that Sans remembered his father, remembered Grillby, but this hope was usually crushed pretty quickly, whether by a passing remark or by the realization that it was selfish and perhaps narcissistic to think that he was even partially the cause of Sans’ issues. Still, he enjoyed Sans’ company. He enjoyed still being a part of his life, even if he couldn’t be a part of it like he once was. He only hoped Sans was at least taking care of himself, and that Papyrus, who had never enjoyed spending time in the tavern, was doing well.

What Grillby didn’t know was that Sans had an ulterior motive for showing up at the tavern as often as he did. Grillby always seemed to “light up”, as it were, and he wanted to make it happen as much as possible. He noticed Grillby’s newly adopted quiet demeanor quite quickly, but pretended he did not, pretended he was as slow on the uptake as usual, pretended he had no idea what was going on.

Neither one ever asked the other about Gaster. After all, how could they ever discuss a man who doesn’t exist?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks again to tumblr user NekoChan700 for this prompt! again, if anyone has any angst prompts or otherwise, feel free to drop em here, or in my inbox on tumblr (@jaspertheshark)!  
> i hope you enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if i'm happy with this but again i'll probably edit it later. i hope you enjoyed!  
> If YOU have any ideas, sad or otherwise, please feel free to send them my way. My tumblr is jaspertheshark. Note: they dont have to be just writing prompts, i accept art prompts as well, and am currently taking commissions if you're interested in that.  
> thanks for reading!


End file.
